British Euro lawmaker calls women 'sluts'

Britain's United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) and member of the European Parliament Godfrey Bloom is pictured at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, eastern France, on November 24, 2010.
(AFP/File)

LONDON (AFP) – A veteran lawmaker from the UK Independence Party (UKIP) was stripped of the party whip on Friday after describing a room full of women as "sluts", the party said.

Godfrey Bloom, who sits in the European Parliament, had "gone too far", UKIP leader Nigel Farage said earlier.

Farage, who had earlier given a speech to UKIP's annual conference, told the BBC before the decision: "My recommendation is that we now today remove the party whip."

He said 63-year-old Bloom's behaviour had been "selfish" and was overshadowing "all the good things" happening at the conference.

Farage added: "The trouble with Godfrey is that he is not a racist, he's not an extremist or any of those things and he's not even anti-women but he has a sort-of rather old fashioned territorial army sense of humour which does not translate very well in modern Britain.

"What he ought to have learnt is that time and time again he says things that overshadow the whole agenda that UKIP is fighting for."

The whip was withdrawn after a formal disciplinary hearing.

Bloom made the comment at a fringe meeting at the party's annual conference in London, when he referred to previous comments he had made about women failing to clean behind the fridge.

When women delegates at the meeting protested that they had never cleaned behind their fridges, he said: "This place is full of sluts."

Bloom, who represents Yorkshire and Humber in northern England, had to defend himself earlier this year when he complained that British aid was going to "bongo-bongo land", in a reference to developing countries.

UKIP believes Britain should pull out of the European Union and is anti-immigration. Although it does not have a single seat in the British parliament, it made strong gains in local elections this year and could take away votes from Prime Minister David Cameron's Conservative Party at the 2015 general election.